PRESS
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Michael Gira interview
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FROM QRD QUARTERLYI guess pretty much everyone that's ever read an issue of QRD knows that Michael Gira is essentially the artist I admire most.I guess he's most famous for his band Swans, but he also writes & paints & he has two new musical projects called The Angels of Light & The Bodylovers. I was supposed to do this interview before a show, but there wasn't time so this interview ended up being conducted by mail; which maybe makes it feel a little more formal & less in depth than a normal QRD interview.... QRD -- would you say Swans accomplished what you wanted it to & what did you want it to? Michael -- I never had a concept I wanted to elucidate, just a sound I wanted to hear at a particular time & a series of images or stories I was obsessed with over the years (always changing); so I'd say it did accomplish what I wanted, which was to work. QRD -- how important do you think personal honesty is in art? Michael -- There are different types of honesty. Probably the most enduring is to excise comfort or habit. QRD -- which artform (music/visual/words)......
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Michael Gira's Angels of Light | Review
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INK 19 | Frank MullenEcho Lounge, Atlanta, GA June 11, 1999Anyone familiar with Michael Gira's history with the Swans might know what they could expect from a performance by his latest project. Unearthing the haunted, dark side of the human experience, stripping away the veil of civility to reveal the pain and suffering of the world -- that was the Swans' specialty. And to a slightly lesser degree, Gira continues that approach with the Angels of Light, presenting intense and personal narratives from his unique corner of the world. The stage was crowded -- the five band members switched positions often, each playing at least two different instruments. This created a rich, dense sound, especially when overlaid with Gira's baritone voice. He sang from a different single-page lyric sheet for each song, many of which had words crossed out and written in by hand. Works in progress? His vocals were often low chants, rising with the music, then breaking into sharp percussive choruses. Starting quietly, a few of the tunes built to crashing, droning crescendos, like the soundtrack to a slow motion car wreck. When these songs ended, there was always a moment of silence before the applause began. The......
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Michael Gira | Interview
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Alternative Press | Issue 132 | Dave CliffordFollowing Swans' dissolution in 1996, Gira has pursued several projects, but the recent release of Angels Of Light's New Mother finds him once again fronting a full band to initiate a new form of musical menace.Since first maligning the blues in 1982 with his brutally antipathetic noise group Swans, Michael Gira has been experimenting with sound as catharsis, and exploring lyrical themes that posit that life, sex, work and death are humanity's only art. Following Swans' dissolution in 1996, Gira has pursued several projects, but the recent release of Angels Of Light's New Mother finds him once again fronting a full band to initiate a new form of musical menace. What are some of the projects you've been involved with since the end of Swans? Immediately after Swans, I started the Body Lovers project, which was more of a continuation of the collaging of concrete sounds that I'd started using in Swans. I also went through the massive nightmare undertaking of recording the Angels Of Light album. I like the music, but putting it together was the usual nightmare of budget. In the process of recording the album, I ran out of money......
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Preview | Bowery Ballroom; Saturday July 3
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TimeOut New Your | Issue No. 197 | Jordan N. MamoneRounded out by a crew of familiar associates, this tasteful ensemble fleshes out the performer's obsessions with pastoral American songwriting traditions.Michael Gira certainly has a passion for extremes. For the better part of the 15 years he spent leading avant-rock luminaries Swans, his name was synonymous with Herculean, confrontational noise that thrilled and repulsed audiences with its single-minded crunch. After taking that exhausting approach to its logical end, the frontman has gradually redirected his energy toward less brutal, though still intense, sonic statements. After retiring Swans in 1997, he split his musical personality into two distinct entities. The ultraharsh ambient project the Body Lovers and its evil twin, the Body Haters, have engaged Gira's intellect (note the curious electronic hell of 34:13, the latter's recent disc on Young God Records), but his latest group, the Angels of Light, has stolen his heart. Rounded out by a crew of familiar associates, this tasteful ensemble fleshes out the performer's obsessions with pastoral American songwriting traditions. During Swans' unfortunate mid-period, before their triumphant final endeavors, they strode into similarly melodic territory, but their overproduced attempts at fragility often sounded forced, fatigued and Gothic–check......
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The Angels of Light | Preview
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The Dallas Observer | Robert Wilonsky one night a few years ago, the Swans played the Orbit Room's big room -though, in retrospect, played is probably the wrong word. That freaking band didn't play anything; God forbid you use a child's word to describe that torturous night - that black-and-white noise pouring from the stage like acid and thunder, and all that droning, tumultuous feedback. All I remember of that night is the frightful roar (imaging punk without, like, notes) and trying to locate even the slightest hint of a song beneath the waves and waves of dirgey discord: that, and standing on Commerce Street, a few hundred feel away from the Orbit Room, and still being able to hear the rumble inside over the oncoming traffic outside. Pain, thy name was Swans. God help me, but if I never hear "Blood Promise" (at least, I think thats what that was) done that way again, it'll be too soon. Probably the point, though. Still, it was sort of odd, given that the post-Love of Life records were actually kind of pretty, in a grimy and sort of disquieting kind of way; the live show seemed something of a throwback to......